In Friday’s boys basketball game against crosstown rival Milford, Lakeland’s best shots didn’t come from inside the paint or from beyond the arc.

Instead, the Eagles’ sweet spot came from the unlikeliest of places – the free throw line.

Host Lakeland spent so much time at the charity stripe, they might as well have taken up a permanent residence there, sinking 14-of-22 attempts to help secure a 37-23 win in the season opener for both squads.

“It’s a rivalry game and you want to do some fun things to make it memorable, but for a lot of the game, it wasn’t too memorable and it was ugly,” Lakeland coach Bob Brugger said. “I think we’re better than we showed tonight, but we’ll take the win. It’s a tough situation for the kids being in a rivalry game in game 1. Game One is usually ugly anyhow, and then with the rivalry, it makes it more tense and emotional and we didn’t play smart.”

With each team being flagged for seven fouls apiece to trigger a bonus situation, scoring points was hard to come by in the first half as the Eagles edged out the Mavericks 11-6 at intermission.

When play resumed, Lakeland senior forward Martin Sinishtaj hit a turn-and-gun in the opening minute before Milford’s Jackson Hale answered back on a mid-range jumper to pull within five.

The Eagles then found themselves in a scoring groove, running off a 7-0 run on a pair of buckets by senior Travis Seka and a baseline drive from junior Andrew Hunt, forcing the Mavericks to call a full timeout with 2:17 left in the third.

Hale knocked home a shot from the wing to put Milford in double-digits, which was followed-up by a field goal from close range at the other end by sophomore Cass Phillips.

With 45 seconds remaining, junior Zachary Jones of the Mavericks hit the first triple of the game to make it a 22-13 game, with Lakeland on top heading into the final quarter.

“Lakeland really spread the floor out in the second half when they got up big,” Milford coach David Gilbert said. “Early on defensively, we played pretty well. Their strength is their interior guys and our guys did an excellent job. We should score a lot more from our guards, but I thought Jackson did a nice job getting in the flow of the game hitting some nice 15-footers.”

The two teams traded three-pointers to begin the fourth before the Eagles rattled off another 7-0 run, with all of those points coming from the free throw line.

A technical foul called against the Milford bench came during that sequence, as did a double bonus after reaching 10 fouls with 3:29 on the clock.

The highlight of the night came just before the final minute of play when Seka connected with Phillips on an alley-oop dunk to make it a 35-18 affair.

Another technical foul would be called against the Mavericks, this time on a loose-ball scramble, allowing Seka (13 points, 9-of 12 free throws) to net another pair at the line.

“Travis Seka is much improved,” Brugger said. “I think he’ll end up being one of the more improved guys in our division. In the first half, they weren’t guarding him tight because it was a slow, grind-it-out-kind of game. Once we got a lead, you could see that he was a handful.”

Even with the one-sided score, Milford continued to push the ball upcourt in the waning moments, with junior guard Dominic Dawson burying a shot from behind the arc before adding a field goal from close range to close out the game.

Jones was the Mavericks’ top scorer with seven points, while sophomore guard Aiden Warzecha added six. Dawson pulled down a team-high five rebounds to go along with his five points.

“Our guys don’t mind a scrap,” Gilbert said. “Whether it’s big or small, they don’t mind scrapping. We’ve got to develop that toughness and harness it a little bit more. I was proud of our kids with their fight. They continued to fight until the final buzzer and we scored with nine seconds to go. We fought and they don’t mind doing that, so that’s what’s going to help us down the road.”

Aside from Seka, other main contributors for Lakeland were Sinishtaj (nine points) and Phillips (six points).

Even though his team fared well at the line, Brugger would like to see an improvement in their shooting after going 11-38 from the field.

“We were 1-of-13 from three-point range tonight, but we’ve got some guys who can shoot it,” Brugger said. “We just did not shoot it well tonight. I’m proud of my guys and we hung in there. That’s why it’s a 32 minute game and not a 16 minute game. I’m happy, we’ll take it and run and go from there.”